1. Why did the speaker go on the tour?
| A．It was the prize of a competition. |
| B．John asked her to go with him. |
| C．It was her travel plan. |
| A．The drinks. | B．The food. | C．The waiters. |
| A．Disappointing. | B．Amazing. | C．Terrible. |
| A．She rode an elephant. |
| B．She went to the mountains. |
| C．She relaxed in the hotel. |
2 . One day, Joyce Chancellor purchased an old diary at auction. She was
The inside front cover had the name and address of Mattie Leola. The diary chronicled (按事件发生顺序记载) events in a young professional woman’s life over a five-year period, including her college
Eventually the diary provided an important clue about Mattie’s possible descendants: an/a
After several
“Returning the diary to Mattie’s son was a/an
| A．attracted | B．challenged | C．assigned | D．shocked |
| A．identity | B．origin | C．family | D．ancestor |
| A．graduation | B．admission | C．application | D．employment |
| A．Pictures | B．Backgrounds | C．Dates | D．Clues |
| A．mistakes | B．history | C．money | D．preparations |
| A．belief | B．climate | C．recognition | D．support |
| A．lecture | B．context | C．edition | D．journal |
| A．forgive | B．inspire | C．marry | D．leave |
| A．located | B．contacted | C．changed | D．delivered |
| A．attempts | B．movements | C．appointments | D．events |
| A．deal | B．call | C．debate | D．meetup |
| A．secrets | B．diaries | C．promises | D．records |
| A．touched | B．impressive | C．anxious | D．addicted |
| A．tough | B．confusing | C．rewarding | D．awkward |
| A．solution | B．arrangements | C．effect | D．mark |
I was awakened by the sound of heavy boots hitting the floor as my grandfather walked across the wooden floor to the fireplace. He added wood to the fire. Soon, the small wooden house felt warm.
It was 5: 30 on a cold January morning, deep in the mountains of central Pennsylvania. I, a12-year-old boy, was here with my grandfather and four other men on an annual deer-hunting trip. My grandfather wanted me to take the adventure to increase my courage and fun.
Looking at me, he smiled, “Could you make some coffee?” To prove that I was qualified to join this male club, I got up and started the work.
After breakfast, we left the warm and safe house and headed out into the dark, snowy morning, walking through deep snow. When we climbed over a mountain and crossed frozen streams, my grandfather told me to be mindful of where we had been and where we were headed. I tried to keep track of our route, but later had no idea.
About mid-afternoon, we made our way down the side of a new mountain to the stream bed below. My grandfather told me to head to the top of the next mountain, walk along the ridge (山脊) for a few hundred feet, and then come back down. If there were any deer on that part of the mountain, I would need to threaten them down to the bottom where my grandfather waited. So, off I went with a gun.
It took me 20 minutes to climb to the top. I walked along the ridge and then headed back down. I didn’t realize I had crossed over the top and had started back down the other side of the mountain. I headed in the wrong direction. After walking for 45 minutes, I realized I was lost in the woods. I was shocked.
After finally calming myself, I sat down and worked out a plan. I would first fire the gun and then start a fire, hoping my grandfather would know where I was by the sounds and smoke.
I looked at my watch. It was 4: 00. The sun would set down soon.
注意：
1. 续写词数应为150左右;
2. 请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
I held my gun and immediately fired three shots.
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Finally, I found my grandfather and other men walking in my direction hurriedly.
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When I was a young hairstylist and worked inside a barbershop, a lady came in one day who looked broken and tired. “Can I help you?” I asked.
She was almost in tears as she replied, “My sister is really sick, and her hair is a mess. I’ve been to several barbershops, and no one will help me because she can hardly walk. I’ll have to bring her inside in her wheelchair.” The woman went on to tell me that’s he had managed to wash her sister’s hair before they left home, which was hard for her to do, and she stressed that all she needed was for her sister’s hair to be cut.
“I’ll be happy to help you,” I said. I offered to help her get her sister out of the car, but the woman said, “No, I’ll get her in.” She must have told me “thank you” a hundred times as she headed out to get her sister.
While I was waiting for the women to come in, I walked over to my station and moved my hydraulic (液压的) chair out of its space because I knew it would be easier for this woman to just roll her sister right up to the spot.
When she came back in, I was not prepared for what I saw. The sister was seriously ill.
As I saw the sick girl, I had a hard time holding back my tears, but I calmed myself down. I moved the chair to make things easier for them.
I cut and styled the sister’s hair, and the three of us chatted. It was truly a moment I knew I would never forget. Before they left, the woman who’d originally approached me asked me to write down my name and phone number for her. So I gave her my business card, which already had all the information on it.
注意：
1. 续写词数应为150左右；
2. 请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
Two weeks after this encounter, I received a bunch of flowers and an envelope with my name on it.
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I put away the money, then turned the card around and wrote that your hearts weren’t the only ones touched that day.
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1. When will the soap opera end?
| A．At 6:00 pm. | B．At 7:00 pm. | C．At 8:30 pm. |
| A．The football game. | B．The comedy. | C．The soap opera. |
| A．Having a walk. | B．Reading a newspaper. | C．Watching a football game. |
One evening, a workman was exhaustedly making his way home after work. When he stopped to rest by the side of the road, a woman came by, pushing a cart full of flowers. The smell of her blossoms filled the air with sweetness, and it seemed to take away the tiredness in his bones and lift his spirits. He had never experienced such wonder from the many blooms of his own garden. “How much must I pay, or what must I do, to have some of your wonderful flowers?” he asked the woman.
“Oh, sir,” she said, “take what you wish for.”
“What return must I make for them?” he asked again.
“Your gratitude is enough,” she said, “and it’s a pleasure to share the beauty of flowers with you.”
So the man filled his arms with blossoms and hurried joyfully home. His wife and his children were also glad about the remarkable flowers. They also discovered that the sight of them was a delight and the smell of them refreshed the soul.
In order not to lose his valuable possession, the man planted the blossoms in a small plot of land behind his house. Sunlight and water kept them amazingly beautiful—they still performed their fantastic magic.
Every day, his children took delight in playing in the yard and always sang and danced around the flowers. They all liked the lovely gift their father had received and even invited many of their friends to share this fantastic magic together. When children came to play near the flowers, the man over and over warned them against carelessness and wild play for fear that they would walk on the flowers and damage them. But the flowers remained strong as long as there was enough sun and water to nourish(滋养) them. Nowhere else could the man or his wife or children find such remarkable relaxation from tiredness, such comfort in sadness, such spiritual nourishment as those remarkable flowers provided.
With the news spreading and more people coming to appreciate his treasure, the man became even more concerned about his remarkable flowers.
注意：续写词数应为150左右。
He was determined to protect the flowers.
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However, the flowers seemed to fade day by day, so the man went everywhere for help.
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7 . What is life? Like most great questions, this one is easy to ask but difficult to answer. The reason is simple: we know of just one type of life and it’s challenging to do science with a sample size of one. The field of artificial life-called ALife for short — is the systematic attempt to spell out life’s fundamental principles. Many of these practitioners, so-called ALifers, think that somehow making life is the surest way to really understand what life is.
So far no one has convincingly made artificial life. This track record makes ALife a ripe target for criticism, such as declarations of the field’s doubtful scientific value. Alan Smith, a complexity scientist, is tired of such complaints. Asking about “the point” of ALife might be, well, missing the point entirely, he says. “The existence of a living system is not about the use of anything.” Alan says. “Some people ask me, ‘So what’s the worth of artificial life?’ Do you ever think, ‘What is the worth of your grandmother?’”
As much as many ALifers hate emphasizing their research’s applications, the attempts to create artificial life could have practical payoffs. Artificial intelligence may be considered ALife’s cousin in that researchers in both fields are enamored by a concept called open-ended evolution (演化). This is the capacity for a system to create essentially endless complexity, to be a sort of “novelty generator”. The only system known to exhibit this is Earth’s biosphere. If the field of ALife manages to reproduce life’s endless “creativity” in some virtual model, those same principles could give rise to truly inventive machines.
Compared with the developments of Al, advances in ALife are harder to recognize. One reason is that ALife is a field in which the central concept — life itself — is undefined. The lack of agreement among ALifers doesn’t help either. The result is a diverse line of projects that each advance along their unique paths. For better or worse, ALife mirrors the very subject it studies. Its muddled (混乱的) progression is a striking parallel (平行线) to the evolutionary struggles that have shaped Earth biosphere.
Undefined and uncontrolled, ALife drives its followers to repurpose old ideas and generated novelty. It may be, of course, that these characteristics aren’t in any way surprising or singular. They may apply universally to all acts of evolution. Ultimately ALife may be nothing special. But even this dismissal suggests something：perhaps, just like life itself throughout the universe, the rise of ALife will prove unavoidable.
1. Regarding Alan Smith’s defence of ALife, the author is .| A．supportive | B．puzzled | C．unconcerned | D．doubtful |
| A．Shocked. | B．Protected. | C．Attracted. | D．Challenged. |
| A．ALife holds the key to human future. | B．ALife and AI share a common feature. |
| C．AI mirrors the developments of ALife. | D．AI speeds up the process of human evolution. |
| A．Life Is Undefined. Can AI Be a Way Out? |
| B．Life Evolves. Can AI Help ALife Evolve, Too? |
| C．Life Is Undefined. Can ALife Be Defined One Day? |
| D．Life Evolves. Can Attempts to Create ALife Evolve, Too? |
The Race
After watching my son Todd run in a race, I made my usual comment (评论), “Todd, I could walk faster than those women run.” Todd laughed as he knew I wasn’t a runner. “Listen, Mom, how about running with me next year at this race?” Without thinking, I agreed to this challenge. I felt it’s a piece of cake!
Never did I imagine what the next year would bring. When it was almost time for this race to occur, Todd died in a car accident. A few of his friends knew this “challenge” I had agreed to with Todd. They started to encourage me to run the race. Honestly speaking, I had almost forgotten what I said.
Thinking deeply, I decided I should keep my promise to Todd. The first thing I did was buy some running clothes. I might look good, even though I hadn’t trained.
The day of the race came. I felt pretty sad, but I started off. It wasn’t long before a man started to run next to me. The man was very talkative. He kept saying how tired he was. The chatter went on and on. The race was over, and this man’s wife won! I was just happy to finish and keep my promise to Todd.
I came home, and my neighbor asked about the race. I told him what had happened. My neighbor laughed, “Kay, don’t you know what this guy was doing? He thought you were the competition by the way you were dressed. He wanted his wife to win. ” “Oh really!?”
The following year I did train. I even bought some tapes called “Win At Sports” and listened to them daily. If this man thought I was the competition, you could bet I was going to be the competition. His attitude in that race built a fire in me! The race was on!
注意: 1.续写词数应为150左右；
2.请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
When it was time for the race, I was all dressed and ready.
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I stayed behind this man’s wife almost the whole race.
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9 . Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson said this week that he had finally “got rid of this damn chocolate demon”. He returned to a supermarket in Hawaii to “right the
In an Instagram post, he explained that his family was “
He
Johnson
He wrote that the deed might seem
“We can’t
| A．wrong | B．previous | C．absent | D．severe |
| A．applicant | B．freshman | C．teenager | D．graduate |
| A．bitten | B．broke | C．engaged | D．flooded |
| A．university | B．canteen | C．destination | D．gym |
| A．hesitate | B．determine | C．refuse | D．afford |
| A．responded | B．interpreted | C．recalled | D．credited |
| A．waved | B．lowered | C．handled | D．balanced |
| A．standing for | B．serving as | C．complaining of | D．weighing on |
| A．established | B．honored | C．documented | D．reserved |
| A．emptied | B．devoted | C．arranged | D．released |
| A．cruel | B．dramatic | C．inspiring | D．silly |
| A．step in | B．turn away | C．pass by | D．look around |
| A．extend | B．change | C．abandon | D．highlight |
| A．putting | B．decorating | C．mastering | D．focusing |
| A．occasion | B．starvation | C．approach | D．burden |
Adam lived with his parents in one city while his grandparents lived far away in another city. Adam’s parents usually took their son to his grandparents’ house during summer holiday every year and stayed there for around 20 days. Adam’s grandfather loved him very much and spent a lot of time playing with him. His grandmother always cooked delicious food for him. Adam loved his stay there. This continued for years. The boy grew up over time.
One day Adam said to his parents, “Now, I am old enough to go to grandparents’ house alone. So, please let me go by myself.”
His parents didn’t agree at first but Adam insisted(坚持). They finally agreed. But they were worried about his safety. So, they taught him everything he needed to know to travel alone.
The day came when Adam was to leave for his grandparents’ house. And his parents came to see him off at the train station. When the boy was comfortably seated on the train, his parents got off and waited for the train to leave.
While waiting, the father went to the window and kept talking to his son. He handed his son an envelope(信封) from the window and said, “Son, if you feel afraid on the way, open this and read it. It will help you to calm down.”
The boy kept that envelope in his pocket carefully and said goodbye to his parents. When the train was ready to leave, the boy smiled and told his father, “I remember everything. Don’t worry.”
At every station where the train stopped, people kept coming and going. The boy started feeling a little lonely.
注意：1.续写词数应为150左右;2.请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
At one station, a big man with cuts on his face got on the train.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Then he remembered his father’s letter.
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